Toby Doeden faces three rivals in South Dakota GOP primary
toby doeden is one of four Republicans on Tuesday’s South Dakota gubernatorial primary ballot. The businessman is running in a race that could decide whether the state’s Republican nominee gets the governor’s office or has to keep fighting into June.
Four candidates are competing for the nomination: Doeden, Gov. Larry Rhoden, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson and state House Speaker Jon Hansen. South Dakota Republicans use a 35% threshold in the governor’s race, so the winner needs more than a simple plurality to avoid a June 23 runoff.
Rhoden’s full-term test
early 2025 put Rhoden in the governor’s office after Kristi Noem stepped down to join President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, and Tuesday is his first full-term test at the top of the ticket. Doeden, Johnson and Hansen are all trying to deny him a direct nomination in a state that has been one of the most reliably Republican-voting in general elections.
That 35% rule is the complication in plain sight. In the governor’s race, the U.S. Senate primary and the U.S. House primary, any Republican who falls short of that share can be pushed into a runoff rather than crowned on primary night.
June 23 runoff line
If no candidate clears the threshold, the top two vote-getters advance to a June 23 runoff. The same primary cycle also includes five candidates for Sioux Falls mayor, giving voters in the state’s largest city a second contest with a crowded field and the same election-night pressure.
Polls close at 7 p.m. local time in South Dakota, which means most of the state closes at 8 p.m. ET and some Mountain time precincts close at 9 p.m. ET. For readers following the governor’s race, the first question is not whether Republicans have the advantage in November; it is whether Tuesday produces a nominee outright or extends the contest into another month.
